


candlelight glow

by poppyseedheart



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Relationship Study, Vernon's Heart Eyes Are Visible From Pluto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29450373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppyseedheart/pseuds/poppyseedheart
Summary: There’s a snowflake in Seungkwan’s eyelashes. His face is scrunched up like he’s trying not to cry. He’s the prettiest thing Hansol has ever seen.“What the fuck,” Seungkwan protests, and he looks outrageously angry, which is how Hansol knows he isn’t. “Chwe Hansol, explain yourself.”
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Comments: 36
Kudos: 190





	candlelight glow

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day verkwaners! thank u to folks on twitter who voted for this pairing, i meant for this to be like 800 words but it got too long to just put on twit so we're here on ao3 now! 
> 
> this is generally not my favorite holiday for a lot of reasons but i always have fun writing about love even when i feel jaded! so this one goes out especially to all of the tired romantics out there. love u. hope this is a fun read. <3

“Thank you so much,” Seungkwan says effusively as he sits down across from Hansol. His fading blonde hair is charmingly windswept, lopsided and ruffled in the front, and he’s making a face like Hansol just saved his entire life rather than just agreeing to get coffee. “Seriously, I should have known Mingyu-hyung would stand me up.”

Hansol feels himself make a skeptical face.

Seungkwan pouts at him. “Okay, fine, he’s usually reliable. Whatever. I should have known Myungho-hyung would perform some evil ritual to get Mingyu to prioritize him over me.”

“Well,” Hansol says, “they are dating.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes, taking a sip of the coffee Hansol had ordered for him. It must be appropriately sweet, because his expression softens. There’s only half as much bite as Hansol was expecting when he says, “He’s still a traitor.”

“Totally.”

“Definitely.”

Hansol grins at him, big and easy, and Seungkwan softens further. “Seriously, thank you for meeting me. I hate being mad.”

Hansol isn’t sure how those things are connected, but he shrugs. “Of course.”

Seungkwan’s answering smile is small, a pretty half-moon, a candlelight glow. “Were you busy?”

“Nah,” says Hansol. “I was just talking to one of the other interns. We’re learning to make our own beats.”

“That’s cool,” Seungkwan answers genuinely, and he leans in. “Tell me about it.”

So Hansol does.

A lot of people tell Hansol he’s the quietest he ever is when Seungkwan is around. That he gets so caught in Seungkwan’s orbit he forgets to think about himself. It’s usually Soonyoung’s voice in his head, or maybe Chan’s— _You need to stand up for yourself more. If you keep letting him walk all over you…_

Hansol just smiles and nods when they try to intervene like that. On one memorable occasion, he’d snapped so loudly at Chan that Seungkwan had wandered in from the kitchen and given them both a concerned look.

 _Is everything okay?_ he’d asked, eyes round with surprise. Hansol didn’t fight. Doesn’t fight.

 _Yeah,_ Chan had answered quickly, _sorry hyung, just something about a game. We can go if you’re ready._

And they’d bustled out the door to meet the others at a bar, and that had been that. Chan has tried to bring it up a few more times since because he’s stubborn and annoying and knows none of them are actually capable of staying mad at him, but Hansol isn’t interested in discussing it anymore.

If people want to misrepresent his relationship with his best friend, then that’s their own problem. Hansol is different around Seungkwan, yeah, he'll give them that. But he’s not worse off for it.

“So yeah,” he finishes, “it seems complicated, but Jihoon-hyung has been doing this forever, and he’s actually a pretty good teacher.”

Seungkwan makes a sound, somewhere in between approval and disgust.

Hansol hides a laugh behind his hand. It’s cute when Seungkwan is jealous, even if it’s just of Hansol’s time—which has admittedly been in short supply lately.

“What about you?” he asks. “How’s work?”

Seungkwan groans. “Jeonghan-hyung is a _tyrant_ ,” he complains, and launches into a story about their latest client and how Seungkwan had been asked to take point on revisions to the logo designs their team had put together.

It sounds like this is really a story about Seungkwan being promoted, but Hansol is too busy laughing at Seungkwan’s impressions of his coworkers to cut in and ask. Seungkwan has always been like this, able to tell a story however he wants to to get the reaction he wants, and Hansol takes great pride in being a good audience member. He could watch Seungkwan talk forever, he thinks. He thinks it most when he’s feeling sappy, when he’s exhausted and overworked, when he lets himself open the lid on the little box in his chest where his scariest feelings reside until he needs them.

Once Seungkwan is mostly done, Hansol fights the urge to applaud, and instead says, “Hey, congratulations. You deserve to be trusted with responsibility like that. You’ll do great.”

Seungkwan wrinkles his nose like he’s bitten into a lemon, but he can’t hide how pleased he is, ears pinking up and eyes rounding despite himself. “No,” he denies.

“Yes,” insists Hansol, smiling.

Seungkwan sighs, all bluster, and folds his restless hands together primly on the table. “You’re too much sometimes,” he murmurs, almost like Hansol wasn’t meant to hear.

Hansol lets it go. “What else do you have going on today?” he asks.

“Nothing really. I have to call my mom later, but otherwise my only plans were with that traitor. And then some work stuff to deal with later, I guess.”

“Cool. Do you want to go for a walk?”

Seungkwan looks dubiously at the window of the café, where a quick glance confirms that it’s still lightly snowing.

“I brought an extra pair of gloves,” Hansol tries.

Seungkwan looks at him, tilting his head. That same reluctantly pleased expression colors his face. “You did?”

Hansol would do a lot more than buy gloves if it meant Seungkwan would keep looking at him like that. “Yeah,” he shrugs, blasé, casual. “You’re so whiny when you’re cold…”

Seungkwan splutters. “Who said you could be so rude to me, huh? Mingyu stands me up, you make fun of me— who’s next, I wonder, seriously.”

“I’m nice to you!”

“Sometimes,” Seungkwan allows.

Hansol laughs and fishes around in his bag for the gloves, a pretty shade of deep blue. “Here,” he says, tossing them softly at Seungkwan, who catches them easily now that he’s too distracted by his fake ire to pretend to be helpless.

He’s still muttering about the betrayals of his closest friends as he puts them on and stands up, meticulously smoothing down his shirt and adjusting his scarf. Hansol resists the urge to ask for help with his own scarf, which is just hanging loose around his neck.

“Well,” says Seungkwan, ears still pink, and Hansol realizes he’s been staring, “are we going?”

“Yeah,” says Hansol, a beat too late.

Seungkwan laughs at him. “Lead the way, then.”

Hansol leads the way. They take it quickly at first, getting adjusted to the cold. It’s been a blustery, miserable week, and the forecast says it’s only going to get worse over the next two. It’s supposed to get windier. Hansol is looking forward to curling up under a blanket for most of his birthday, at least until he inevitably gets dragged out in the evening to a dinner Seungkwan probably still thinks is a secret from him. He’s not going to spoil the surprise.

“I think I’d be really boring if we weren’t friends,” he muses a few blocks in.

Seungkwan makes a considering sound. “You’re boring now.”

Hansol snorts. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” There’s a moment of quiet. Seungkwan sniffs and rubs at his face with his new gloves. “Is it bad to say that I think I’d be really horrible without you?”

Hansol frowns, peeking at Seungkwan’s wind-pink face. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

“No, what?”

Seungkwan sighs, and then his words come out in a rush. “You’re so nice to me. Even when I’m mad, or annoying, or too much. I know I can be a pain sometimes, but you... you’re always nice to me.”

Ten responses come to the tip of Hansol’s tongue at once. Fifteen, twenty. But the one that makes it out first is the truth. “I mean, I’m not _always_ nice to you.”

He’s mortified, rushing to correct himself, but Seungkwan has already folded at the waist and covered his face, choked sounds coming from under his hat, his padded jacket.

Shit, thinks Hansol. He knows Seungkwan is sensitive. “I didn’t mean that,” he says, trying to coax Seungkwan into showing him his face, into standing back up and at least accepting a hug.

But when Seungkwan pulls his hands away, he’s not crying. He’s _cackling_. “Oh my god,” he wheezes, “Hansol-ah, seriously, never change. I love you so much. That was so funny.”

Hansol groans, relief mingling with embarrassment at his own reaction. “Stop laughing at me.”

“Never,” promises Seungkwan.

They both take a minute to calm down, and by the time they start walking again Seungkwan is almost calm again.

“For what it’s worth,” Hansol says, “I don’t think you’re horrible at all. And you’re not annoying.”

“Oh,” Seungkwan answers quietly. He’s so rarely quiet. Hansol waits him out. Fat snowflakes drift around them as they walk, and Hansol watches his own breath in the air.

Sure enough, Seungkwan starts talking again. “Sometimes when you look at me, it makes me think that you… ah, I don’t know.”

“That I what?” asks Hansol, but Seungkwan doesn’t break this time.

“Nothing, seriously. Hey, do you want me to buy you a pastry?” He points up ahead of them, where a bakery has come into view. “They have really good sweet buns.”

Hansol agrees just to see Seungkwan smile at him.

They’re both quiet after that, though Seungkwan is bright when orders for the both of them. It’s dangerous to have gentle moments like this, Hansol has always thought, especially when Seungkwan isn’t filling every silence. Hansol bites into his bun and tries not to pretend too hard, but it’s a vain effort. Seungkwan is wearing the gloves Hansol bought for him on the way to the coffee shop. Seungkwan is cheerfully eating a pastry, cheeks round as he chews, as he smiles. Seungkwan is linking their hands together as they keep walking, streets emptier than usual as the snow picks up in intensity. 

When they finish eating, they start making their way towards Seungkwan’s apartment, which is just a few blocks from where they’d ended up. Hansol’s family’s apartment is on the other side of the district, but the bus stop is just around the corner and he’s more than familiar with the way home from here. 

“Hey,” Hansol says, surprising himself, “hold on a sec.”

Seungkwan pauses. They’re just a block away from goodbye for the evening. “What’s up?”

Hansol has taken off one glove and then the other, and is rooting around in his bag for— “Ha,” he says triumphantly, “here, tell me what you think.” He gently places his earbuds in Seungkwan’s ears, and then takes one of Seungkwan’s ears in his right hand, warming up the freezing skin with his fingers. With his other hand, he scrolls to the correct file on his phone and hits play.

Seungkwan’s eyes are round with surprise, but they narrow quickly as he listens, assessing.

Hansol fights the urge to fidget. It’s the longest minute and a half of his life.

“It’s not finished,” he explains, when it cuts off and Seungkwan blinks up at him. “But that’s what I was working on, um. Today.”

“It’s pretty,” says Seungkwan, and looks like he wants to say more before he cuts himself off and smiles. “Really, it’s really nice.”

Maybe Hansol is still pretending. Maybe he doesn’t know how to stop. “It’s for you,” he says, like that wasn’t a secret he was prepared to take to the grave.

There’s a snowflake in Seungkwan’s eyelashes. His face is scrunched up like he’s trying not to cry. He’s the prettiest thing Hansol has ever seen.

“What the fuck,” Seungkwan protests, and he looks outrageously angry, which is how Hansol knows he isn’t. “Chwe Hansol, explain yourself.”

“I—”

“This is a love song,” Seungkwan bursts out, interrupting. “And it’s for me? I’m going to be _so_ mad if this is a joke, I’m not even kidding.”

Hansol rolls his eyes. He can’t stop smiling. “It’s not anything yet, but it will be, yeah. A love song. Are you really shocked?” It’s easy to joke about it now that it’s out there—he’s been obvious, hasn’t he? How long has it been since anyone accused Hansol of hiding his feelings for Seungkwan? Months at least, maybe longer.

“Yes,” says Seungkwan, and then, “no, I don’t know. Oh my god. I’m so cold I can’t feel my nose.”

Hansol grabs his hand, watches Seungkwan watch the movement with no small measure of awe. “Let’s get you home, then.”

“I’m gonna cry,” moans Seungkwan.

“That’s okay.”

“This is so embarrassing. I told you you’re too nice to me.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.” 

Seungkwan huffs and grabs Hansol’s hand tighter, swaying until they’re walking with their sides pressed together, a line of warmth. When they get to Seungkwan’s building, Hansol walks up with him.

Outside of Seungkwan’s door, the corridor is empty. Very deliberately, Seungkwan spins Hansol around until his back is against the door, and presses a cold kiss to the corner of his mouth. It’s nervous, fluttery. “Is that okay?” Seungkwan whispers.

“Yeah,” Hansol murmurs back. He steals another kiss, and then one more, gradually warming up until neither of them is shivering anymore.

“I have to call my mom,” Seungkwan eventually says into the space between them. “And send Jeonghan the files he asked for, and—”

“That’s okay,” Hansol says. “I know you’re busy. Dinner tomorrow?”

Seungkwan nods, face set in determination. “Yes. And it’s gonna be a date. Hansol-ah, I’m gonna date you so hard, seriously. Everyone is going to be amazed.”

“Everyone?” asks Hansol, amused.

Seungkwan shoots him a look like _duh_ , but melts immediately when Hansol traces his jaw with gloved fingers. “You especially,” Seungkwan says, and he almost sounds shy. 

“You already amaze me,” Hansol answers.

And that must be too much, because Seungkwan buries his face in his hands and then starts pushing Hansol bodily toward the elevator. “You’re ridiculous,” he’s muttering, “so embarrassing, you can’t just say things like that, who do you think—”

Hansol presses the button to the elevator and asks for one last kiss before he goes. Seungkwan graciously indulges him, and Hansol echoes his smlie when he pulls back, when he walks away. “Dinner tomorrow!” he calls as the doors are closing.

Seungkwan turns around from where he’d been making his way back to his apartment and laughs, pointing at Hansol. “Don’t forget!”

“I’d never,” Hansol answers, and then he’s by himself in the creaky old elevator.

It’s a lot colder in here than it was in the hallway, and colder still when he exits the building altogether and starts trudging toward the bus stop. The bus is crowded, but not so crowded that he can’t shuck his gloves and pull out his phone, bringing up the calendar and creating a new appointment. His hands are shaking with adrenaline, and his cheeks hurt from how much he’s been smiling. Did that happen? Is today real? He needs to calm down before he gets home if he doesn’t want to deal with the third degree from his family, but he can’t help it.

 _Dinner with Seungkwan_ , he enters into a calendar appointment for tomorrow. He’ll have to decide on a really good restaurant, he thinks as he looks at the appointment title. 

After a moment of deliberation, he adds a heart, and makes a note to thank Minghao for whatever sappy shit he and Mingyu are likely getting up to today.

**Author's Note:**

> twit & cc @poppyseedfic


End file.
